Board keeps status quo

Despite the threat of a lawsuit from civil rights groups, a divided Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved new redistricting maps that mostly keep the status quo, rejecting proposals that would have boosted Latino political clout. Christina Villacorte in the Daily News,

The 4-1 action broke an earlier deadlock in which the board could not muster the supermajority for any of the three plans, meaning the decision would have been left in the hands of an independent panel.

But Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas reconsidered his earlier "no" vote, and eventually cast his lot with Supervisors Don Knabe, Michael Antonovich and Zev Yaroslavsky for the plan that only makes minor shifts in the current boundaries.